


i've been waiting for this time to come around

by Valery_Snowflakes



Series: my family loves you [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009!phan, F/M, M/M, also slight mention of puke but it's nothing detailed, carnival fic because uhh why not, dan is a lovesick idiot, phil is still a child at heart fight me m8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valery_Snowflakes/pseuds/Valery_Snowflakes
Summary: When Dan turns to look at Phil, blue eyes fixed on the driveway and smile gently tugging at his lips, a sunrise outside the car behind him and all of the multi-coloured carnival lights still in his eyes, he can’t help but gawking. Phil, whose black hair looks brown in the mornings and who sucks at dancing unless it’s with Dan; who carries a million lights in his eyes and a dozen suns in his smile, is sitting right next to him, eyes trained on the pavement and fingers tapping a song that doesn’t exist yet in the steering wheel.





	i've been waiting for this time to come around

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, fellow Phandom members! Whaddup, it's ya girl Lery with yet another wholesome phan ft. family fic because why the f not.  
> So, uh, I'm not really familiar with Londinense carnivals because I wasn't raised in the UK but I guess street carnivals don't really change much from one country to another? Idk maybe they do and this is all a big flop.  
> Anyway, enjoy!
> 
> Title's from One Direction — Story Of My Life

Dan snuggles himself a little further into his coat, buries his mittens in the black pockets and hopes Phil’s Hufflepuff scarf will bring him some extra warmth if he wraps it around his neck tight enough.

“You’re going to choke yourself to death, Dan” says Cornelia. She’s wearing a thick white windbreaker and blue mittens that Kathryn had lent her hours before.

“That’s my dream,” he answers, smiling slightly from under the Harry Potter merchandise.

  She laughs, brushes a strand of hair out of her face and back into her beanie.

“And today on _“Are We Talking About Kinks Or Not?”:_ Dan Howell and suffocating himself to death, place your bets people. Spoiler alert: he’s always talking about kinks.”

“I want to be taken out, on a date or a sniper way I don’t particularly mind.” Dan cites a text post he’d seen from Tumblr months ago, reaches blindly for his phone inside his coat pocket.

“You’re already taken. Don’t you dare mistreat my sweet, innocent bean, young mister.” Her voice is laced with humour but there’s an undertone to it. Dan knows there’s a real threat behind those words and so he doesn’t laugh, doesn’t try to shrug it off as a joke. He hopes the silence is all Cornelia needs to know that he’s serious with this, too. He wouldn’t want to lose Phil even if it meant losing his own life.

  There are four text messages from his brother waiting for him on Messenger and two missed phone calls from Phil from when they’d split apart and couldn’t find each other in the crowd earlier. He ignores all of them in sake of opening his camera app to record something for the people of Instagram to gawk at.

  In front of them there’s Phil, Adventure Time hoodie around his waist and mittens poking from his jeans pockets. Dan huffs, watches the small, white trace his breath leaves behind and shakes his head. Phil is smiling, as always, and the multi-coloured lights from various carnival games reflect on his skin in a way that’s almost mesmerizing.

“This freak,” Dan says to the camera, smiling behind his phone. “He’s asking for a cold, I’m telling you. Oi, mate, your mum’s going to kill you!”

  If Phil hears Dan scream he acts like he didn’t, and starts munching on Martyn’s corn dog instead.

  Cornelia snickers behind him, red locks falling out of her beanie in the process. Dan saves the video, doesn’t think about uploading it to his social media. Instead he pockets his phone again and takes Cornelia by the arm, drags her in the midst of people and children screaming to where their boyfriends are.

  Phil smiles so wide when Dan wraps his arms around his torso that he almost chokes on the corn dog.

“You’re fucking freezing,” Dan says, even though he can’t know for sure because he has about six layers of clothes on. “Put on that fucking hoodie or I’m calling your mum.”

  That seems to do it, because Phil begrudgingly unties the bright yellow thing from around his hips and slides it over his arms instead, sticks his tongue out because he might be twenty-two but he’s still a child.

“If you get a cold I’m not stayin' around to nurse you back to health,” Dan deadpans, and Phil shrugs, smiles sheepishly.

“If I do get a cold I’ll make sure you get sick too, so when you go back home you'll have the worst time ever,” he teases, bright blue eyes looking green with how the yellow light shines directly on his face.

“And they said chivalry is dead, what a gentleman.” Dan smiles, kisses Phil on the nose because he knows his lips must be fucking freezing.

  Phil wrinkles his nose, blows some air on it in a vain attempt to warm it up.

“You’re mean, I’m telling mum,” he says, pouting like a child, and Dan smiles unwillingly.

“Then I’m telling her that you were walking out here, when it’s basically snowing, without so much as a hoodie on for God knows how long.”

  There are screams and laughs everywhere so Dan doesn't quite register when Martyn lets out a small giggle, places his hand on Dan's shoulder.

“Watching them bicker is like being the host of a TV show about lawn mowers, weird as fuck but intriguing in a way only memes can be.” He says to Cornelia, and she nods.

  Dan smiles, jokingly swats his hand away from his shoulder and spares a quick glance at him in the meantime. Martyn’s got a green Christmas sweater on and looks full of energy, fairy floss on one hand and Cornelia’s mittened hand on the other.

  Phil huffs, his breath leaving a small cloud of air behind. He reaches for Dan’s hand and intertwines their fingers, smiles with glee and lets his tongue poke out of his teeth in a cartoonish way that Dan has learnt makes his heart skip.

  Dan smiles, lets Phil take his hand while they walk across the long makeshift hallways of buskers and walking vendors. Martyn and Cornelia trail behind them, their laughs being soft whispers that get lost in the crowd.

 

  According to Dan’s internal clock it’s a little bit before two am when Phil points at one last game. It’s reassembles a ship, Dan notices, and its whole purpose is to rock back and forth, a little bit higher each time. He doesn’t think all the junk food he just ate agrees with the intense motion.

  But Phil is carefree, he tugs and smiles and points like a little child until Martyn agrees to go in it with him _. “Okay, the last one, after this we’re going home. Got it?”_ he asks like parents do when their kids ask for just _one more thing_ at the store. And Phil bounces on the balls of his feet excitedly, nods so hard Dan thinks something might snap.

  They leave running, because Phil’s excited and Dan has learned Martyn tends to go with the flow, and so Dan and Cornelia watch as their two grown-up boyfriends hop excitedly in what honestly seems a little bit too much like something created by Satan.

“Thank you,” Cornelia whispers into the night all of sudden, passing an arm around Dan’s shoulders and leaning onto him in a way that must not be comfortable, considering their height difference.

“For what, exactly?” Dan asks, he’s got Phil’s third fairy floss on one hand and his Texas Tater Twister on the other. He watches and both of the Lester siblings hold on for dear life to the ship, that raises them a little bit higher each time.

“For making my baby smile,” she says, snuggling up to him. It’s late and cold but Dan doesn’t think those are the reasons. There’s something of being awake and out at this hour that gives him a feeling of immortality, and he feels like maybe someday someone will write about this moment and people will bask in it, too. Like this life, who has belonged to him for so long but never felt truly his, one day will belong to thousands of other people, too. “I hadn’t seen him had this fun in a long time.”

  There are some stars in the sky and Dan watches them blink, feels like they might be observing him, squinting their eyes to try and decipher his feelings, so he squints right back, smiles at them in a way he hopes conceives all of what he’s feeling right now.

“I think,” he says after a long time, when the game has stopped and Phil stands on the ground right next to Martyn, who seems to be puking his insides out. “I think that maybe I was meant to do that.”

  Cornelia smiles against his coat, shrugs to the truth of his answer.

“Maybe you were,” is all she says, and Dan doesn’t know how to answer, doesn’t think he can. But then there are arms around his waist and hands on his face and Cornelia is no longer there, but Phil is and he is smiling so wide it makes Dan smile too.

“Hi,” Phil says, and Dan thinks that’s appropriate even though they hadn’t been apart for that long.

“Hi.” He echoes right back, meeting Phil’s lips with his own and pulling back just as fast, sneaking arms around his torso and pulling him in close for a hug.

 

  They make it back to the Lester’s house way past their curfew, there are still stars in the sky but now there’s an orange undertone to them and Dan watches them flicker from the passenger’s window. Cornelia is sprawled out on the back seat, eyes closed and head resting on Martyn’s lap, who looks at her like there are a million stars in her eyes.

  When Dan turns to look at Phil, blue eyes fixed on the driveway and smile gently tugging at his lips, a sunrise outside the car behind him and all of the multi-coloured carnival lights still in his eyes, he can’t help but gawking. Phil, whose black hair looks brown in the mornings and who sucks at dancing unless it’s with Dan; who carries a million lights in his eyes and a dozen suns in his smile, is sitting right next to him, eyes trained on the pavement and fingers tapping a song that doesn’t exist yet in the steering wheel.

“Hey,” Dan says, smiling, and Phil turns to him for a moment, blows a kiss that smells like that hamburger he’d munched on McDonald's earlier. “Did you know I make you smile?”

  Phil nods, eyes looking from the road to Dan and back and forth.

“Yeah, I did.” There’s a small pause and, “thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Dan smiles, fidgets with the leftovers on his lap. “You also make me smile, a lot. And, urm, you make me really happy. Today was really good.”

  Phil sneezes, blinks through the foggy state his mind is in. “I’m glad it was.”

  They drive back in silence, Phil tapping a song that Dan can’t recognise on the steering wheel and Dan gawking, trying to remember as much as he can before it’s over.

  When they arrive at the Lester’s’ everything is silent, lights dimmed down low on the living room and gentle snores coming from Phil’s parents’ room. Martyn wakes Cornelia up and leads her to his bedroom, waves Dan and Phil goodbye at the door and locks it closed.

  Dan follows Phil through a hallway he feels is insanely long at this hour, plops down fully clothed right next to him and yawns a half-assed goodnight.

“See you in the morning,” Phil whispers, pulling the duvet over both of them.

  Dan answers with a muffled kiss and Phil smiles, tangles himself around Dan like that’s enough. 


End file.
